PMO could mean Program, Project, or Portfolio Management depending on the organization and its objectives. In general, Project Management comes under the umbrella of Portfolio Management where multiple projects are handled simultaneously.
The main goal of the PMO is to manage projects by creating standardized procedures and protocols.
To maintain the flow of the project and achieve consistency, the PMO uses tools like PPM software and empowers their team members to be process complaint while handling the project.
Organizations can achieve their targets easily if the PMO can streamline projects. But, as per the study of PwC, enterprises are lagging with their software adoption game which is a key aspect to ensure project success and establish a successful PMO.
“77% of the high-performing projects use project management tools. Even after creating a positive impact, the adoption rate of Project Management Software remains at 22% which is considered very low. 66% of the Project Managers stated if they got support from the organization, they would extensively use the software.“
– (PwC)
Let’s get back to the topic in hand and understand what PMO is and the benefits associated with it.
What is PMO?
PMO stands for Project Management Office. For enterprise-level organizations, it is this department that ensures the standard for projects and improves the project management process.
PMOs create project documentation, best practices, and update the project status. They also offer training, prioritize projects and ensure all the projects are contributing towards organizational goals.
In short, the job of the PMO is to help achieve organizational goals by adding value to the process and avoiding disruptions.
Top 5 Benefits of PMO:
- Increased Consistency and Accuracy
- Analyze the Important Data
- Project Control
- Portfolio-level Optimization
- Share, Train, and Educate
1. Increased Consistency and Accuracy:
PMO maintains best practices to ensure that all business processes and procedures are followed. Project teams need not start from scratch; rather they can refer to the standard procedures designed by the PMO to move forward and overcome the obstacles.
Since PMO maintains the documentation for every project and categorizes it better, with time they increase the accuracy of resource allocation, time estimation, budget valuation, and training management. Accuracy reduces the chances of failure and increases the probability of success.
When your team uses applications like CA PPM to manage projects, they need process documentation to comply with the organizational standard to achieve consistency and accuracy.
Apty’s in-app help deck sits right inside the CA PPM application. It contains all the relevant documents that your Project Managers and employees need to follow. The document can be in PPT, and PDF format.
Further, you can place knowledge base and video links in the help deck. There is no need for them to ask for help or depend on support to get started. It is one of the best ways to ensure standardization and attain accuracy.
2. Analyze the Important Data:
The data from PMO can come in handy while making crucial decisions regarding projects and improve Enterprise-wide performance. This data is segmented into project type, project length, size of the team, type of team, time to go-live, achieved goals, impact created, and time to results.
All these factors help you to identify the trend of the project. It also helps you to recognize what type of team succeeded in which type of project and based on this, you can train your team members with a particular skill or hire new people to propel the project.
You can also find the areas where the organization can improve and incorporate it in coordination with the PMO by streamlining the portfolio process.
A Digital Adoption Platform like Apty offers the much-needed in-depth Analytics that helps you identify how your Project Management or Portfolio Management software is being used by different teams.
Based on this analysis, you can identify which team is using the application better in comparison to other teams. Once you know that, you can implement the practices opted by the successful team across the board and improve the overall portfolio process.
3. Project Control:
PMO has strategic and procedural control over any project and also over the processes followed to accomplish the project. They identify the gaps during the early stage of any project based on the analysis that is drawn from previous experiences or projects.
The main objective of the PMO is to see whether or not the project is aligning with the organizational goals. If it is, then they have to check whether it is adding value to the overall business.
If they learn during the execution of the project that it is not going to give the desired results even after successful completion, then they have to make a tough decision and drop the project altogether.
This way they save time, money, resources and invest their time on projects that drive the organization towards their goals.
To align the project with the vision of the organization and to accelerate the process, you need to identify the gaps. Apty DAP helps you set goals that can bring you closer to your definition of success. It will help you to set goals that your employees must complete within the Project Management Application.
If they do not accomplish the goals nor complete the process in an intended manner, you can easily notify that particular segment of employees, struggling to follow the process and guide them contextually.
This way you can control the way the Project Management application is used and help your team to follow the process.
4. Portfolio-level Optimization:
Project management is about executing the projects right but portfolio management is all about executing the right projects. The ultimate aim is to execute the projects that add value to the company and prioritize them. It is essential that the projects with minimal to no impact on the business, are dropped.
PMO can use modeling, create rules and regulations to run a project in a particular manner to overcome constraints, avoid disruptions, eliminate critical paths and identify risks.
With each passing project, the governance of the PMO improves and could generate strategic-impactful results. Further, they can optimize the process and can depend on historic data to accomplish certain tasks within the project without any hassle.
Optimizing the process of the project could be difficult as there are many parameters that have to be analyzed.
The Organization often sets the process that the project team has to use while managing the project within the project management application like CA PPM. You can analyze how a process is working using the Insights feature of a DAP like Apty.
It will help you identify which process is consuming time and which is the better way of doing things within the application. It eventually helps you save valuable time of your employees.
5. Share, Train, and Educate:
Each team is different but their projects could be similar to some other team’s project in the same organization. In such scenarios, knowledge sharing is helpful and could fuel the project to completion.
When the project team needs to develop a particular skill, they can contact the PMO as they understand the requirement and could educate the team by hiring the right mentor for the job.
Sometimes training on applications like Clarity PPM or Salesforce is needed but conventional ways are not failproof as employees tend to forget as the days pass by. To counter this, the PMO usually deploys technologies like a Digital Adoption Platform that sits right on top of any web-based application and in this case, it overlays on top of Clarity PPM.
The Digital Adoption Platform helps your team to easily adopt Clarity PPM by guiding them from one step to another to accomplish their task. They can understand all the necessary functionalities that they need to perform within the application in a matter of few hours.
Apty is one of the few Digital Adoption Platforms that can help you to be process complaint. Since data is key for PMO to streamline the process, it is essential to ensure that the project members are following the set standards.
With Apty, PMO Directors like you can easily track how the process is being followed with the Clarity PPM or any other Enterprise application by setting crucial objectives.
Wrapping It Up
PMO is crucial to achieving enterprise-level goals. PMO helps to complete important projects in time by managing resources to create strategic-impact. The objective of the PMO is to optimize the process, empower the project team by educating and training them at the moment of need.
Ultimately, the job of a PMO Director could be simplified if the PMO has the right process, people, and training platform by their side. Sign up for a personalized demo and we’ll show you just how efficient Apty is in guiding PMOs to success.
